Saturday, January 21, 2017

A lot of times we are curious about what other bloggers
make. We want to learn which programs and affiliates they utilize and how we can
increase our own revenues but, often times after I finish reading these
articles I feel like I have not gained any more knowledge then I previously
had. Hopefully you won’t feel the same way after reading this article…

In December according to Google Analytics I had 37, 135 page views, a bounce rate of 67.02 % and 10.2% returning visitors. I had 52.8% from social links (mainly Pinterest) 33.1% from organic searches like Google searches or images and 12.5% direct acquisition and the rest were from referrals (like Link Parties) and other means.

Now bigger blogs may snuff at the idea of making only $300 a
month but this blog is a source of additional income for me on top of my full
time job with benefits. If you work on it full time then you can see more
profitable returns.

Google Adsense

My income from Google Adsense has been continuously growing
month after month. And I definitely reccomend once you are an established blog (over 90 days old and seeing some traffic) you apply for Google Adsense.

Two main factors increase your Google Adsense revenue:
placement and page views. Google allows you to ad three display ad placements,
three links and two search boxes to your blog and I suggest using all of them
as they are a great source of passive income. Also don’t forget to include one
or two mobile advertisements as well.

InfoLinks

Infolinks is one of the first programs I joined and still
use. They have minimum requirements for joining and are fairly simple to
install – you just have to paste their html code or install a plug-in (their
instructions are actually fairly easy to understand)

InfoLinks has various different ad groups – I only have the
intext and intag enabled and I disabled all the pop up ads; although they have
a high return they personally irritate me to no end, therefore I don’t want to
deter any repeat viewers but that is just my opinion, so you can try your own
variation and see what works for you.

They also have a referral program where you can earn 10% of
your referrals income for a year so I would appreciate it – if you use my link. Join InfoLinks here ;)

DealSpotr

DealSpotr is a site that rewards you for finding deals. You
can earn $5 to join, $15 for adding a button to your blog and another $50 for
writing an honest blog post about their company. You are paid in Amazon gift
cards unless you receive ‘gold status’ and I have already received a payment of
$86.01 from them through paypal.

DealSpotr is not one of my large recurring sources of
income but I actively try to find a few lucrative sponsored posts each month.
You can read more about DealSpotr here:

Amazon Affiliates

Amazon is fairly easy to sign up for unless you live in a few certain states. I initially had issues signing up for the American Amazon Affiliate program being Canadian as I had a limited amount of time to sell something before it expired and I had to rejoin the program. But after that initial hiccup have had moderate success with Amazon and thought I might see a decrease in my Amazon earning in January as Christmas has passed but have already exceeded my earning and it only day 16.

Amazon is great because you can find a link to any product you want, have related search results after your posts and have native ads - so products people were already previewing will show up in the native ads so they are highly targeted. Also you get credit for anything people buy after they go to Amazon through your link and I believe the link doesn't expire for 24 hours.

Amazon starts with a 4%
commission rate per month and increases the rate to 6% after shipping 7
products. Unfortunately the higher commission rates are reset at the beginning
of each month.

Link Vehicle

Link Vehicle is going to be rebranded to Valued Voice beginning February 1st. They except smaller blogs, and have a few different opportunities:

Sponsored Posts:

Write articles and topics we provide, or publish articles already written on your behalf. We also find products for you to review and giveaway for your readers.

Sponsored Social:

Share brand messages with your social followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

YouTube Videos:Create videos for the brands we work with. The videos range from just mentioning the brand name to testing out brand products while filming it.

They send you an email when they have available
opportunities which for me has averaged out to at least one post per month (sometimes
there's none and sometimes there's three)

there was no minimum payment but I think that's changing to $100 with the change over.

Svorn

I joined Svorn a couple
months ago but am currently on the search for a more profitable display
advertisement option in addition to Google AdSense. They have a few requirements
for joining including you can’t currently have more than six total display
advertisements on your site.

But I have not seen enough profits with them in comparison to other options so will probably discontinue using Svorn soon. You can leave suggestions if you have had success with another company in the comments.And if you are looking for more information about blogging you can find Everything You Wanted to know about Blogging.

If you have questions or anything isn't clear let me know in the comments so I can expand. Thanks!!

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

I love all the animated movies, although I don't know about watching Trolls 28 times back to back so am excited to see Sing - in theaters next weekend! A singing talent competition with animals and will feature some songs that will surely get stuck in your head (that will replace the current Timberlake)

So I was inspired to create two different Sing Party Invitations.

And here is the second version:

I saved them two to an 8 by 11 page for easier printing.

I saved them to drop box so hopefully you have no issues printing them.

Google

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Hi! I'm Kristen and welcome to Musings of an Average Mom! I am a mother to a compassionate, artistic and dramatic 5 year old girl and active and independent 3 year old boy. I created Musings of an Average Mom as somewhere to collect all those daily musings of a mom on parenting, kids activities, blogging, budgeting and general randomness and do hope you will stay a while.